The trailer of actor Sai Dharam Tej’s Jawaan had promised a thriller with an engaging screenplay and high production values. Despite its moments, the film never really rises above its own limitations. It seems like the director and the writers of the film were in two minds while making this film and couldn’t agree on anything with each other. It begins like a high-concept film with dollops of patriotism but soon reduces itself to serve the image building exercise of Tej.

Jai (Tej) is an aspiring DRDO scientist and an ardent RSS follower. Jai bumps into a small time local goon, who is part of criminal mastermind Keshava’s (Prasanna) big plan to rob India’s celebrated missile technology called Octopus. One thing leads to another and Jai figures that there is a conspiracy at play targeting some top-secret project of the DRDO. But, he doesn’t know what’s at stake yet. So how does he crack the puzzle? He creates a fake WhatsApp message about DRDO shutting down and makes it viral, hoping someone with the real knowledge of the project will come out and clarify. And it works, depressingly so.

And the news about the government’s ‘top secret’ missile project, including the date and time it will be transported to Delhi for testing, goes viral on social media. But, still, the government takes no steps for the security of the missile. The least they could have done is reschedule the transportation of the missile. How difficult is that? Hell, with the safety and secrecy. The DRDO goes ahead with the plan and gets into trouble. The convoy carrying the missile is waylaid and all the security men are killed. Just when Keshava thought he pulled off the heist, Jai, needless to say, single-handedly takes down the machine-gun wielding robbers with just the help of something that resembles a stick.

And it turns out that Keshava and Jai share a bitter past from their childhood. Keshava plans to corner Jai by threatening to kill his family so that he will bring the missile to him. That’s not even the worst part of his ‘masterplan.’ He gives Jai 30 minutes to bring Octopus to him and to make the task more impossible he doesn’t even give an address for the drop. In case, Jai fails to meet his demands, he would blow up half the city of Hyderabad along with his family. What was he thinking? Keshava officially is the stupidest villain ever produced by Indian cinema of late for thinking Jai can bring a missile system out of DRDO at his will. To look more stupid than he already is, he asks Jai to find his whereabouts even without giving a clue and bring the weapon to him within the given time.

The film has many such loose ends and inconsistencies. It gets dull and monotonous with Jai’s frequent duets with Mehreen Pirzada. Despite Tej’s best efforts, the film fizzles out. A scene where Jai explains why he would choose his country over his family any given day is one of the few highlights of the film.